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Covid-19: The T Cell Story

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Re: Covid-19: The T Cell Story

#11
T cell responses are interesting. Infectolab (https://www.infectolab-americas.com/) and its originator Armin (Germany) are using T cell responses for tick borne diseases like: Borellia (Lyme), Bartonella and Babesia because antibody testing is difficult for these (broken via CDC specs as most labs won't test key proteins 31, 34 and never indicate which antibodies are present). Bartonella is very hard to test for with antibody and PCR. It really depends on lab specialty. The sars-cov-2 antibody tests are unpredictable in quality, so nearly useless (my dr is 0-50 via Quest and many people had + PCR).

In short, our immune context (genetic phenotype) is unique! We need a lot more data from everyone to start making accurate correlations. We do not measure T-cells, cytokines, mast cells, b-cells, HLA (partly how we potentially make antibodies) at any meaningful level to provide much confidence. Many natural/industrial substances suppress our T-cell responses and generally innate immune system (metals, mold toxins, etc), so we also need to start accounting for those.

It's a long road we have in front of us. Hopefully the medical system supports patient data ownership and research to improve on our obvious ignorance.

Re: Covid-19: The T Cell Story

#12
post #9

> And wherever we look, infections level off before 10%-20% of the population is infected. This is somewhat mysterious. This is not really true. Bergamo had a 58% infection rate as of last month: https://bergamo.corriere.it/notizie/cronaca/20_maggio_22/ber... Several prisons have seen infection rates in the 70-80% range: https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/0... The USS Theodore Roosevelt had an…

Imperial College report showing mobility trends explain over 80% of observed variations in transmission:

https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/m...

Re: Covid-19: The T Cell Story

#13
post #9

> And wherever we look, infections level off before 10%-20% of the population is infected. This is somewhat mysterious. This is not really true. Bergamo had a 58% infection rate as of last month: https://bergamo.corriere.it/notizie/cronaca/20_maggio_22/ber... Several prisons have seen infection rates in the 70-80% range: https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/0... The USS Theodore Roosevelt had an…

I think that was sloppy writing at the article. I think what they meant was that the curve leveled off, not total infections. Fits with the next section narrative on assumptions on an easily infected population.

Such that, if you maintain close contact, you would still see it spread through more. Explaining the closed populations. But the burst up the curve is driven by the easily infected population more than just mere exposure.

Re: Covid-19: The T Cell Story

#15
post #5

Kind of shows how little we know about the human immune system. Hopefully this pans out and we won’t see massive new waves. I have an anecdotal example of that this might be something. A friend and his wife got tested before delivering their baby and she was positive for antibodies and he was negative. He might have just beaten the virus before the body even started creating antibodies.

[deleted]

Re: Covid-19: The T Cell Story

#16
post #9

> And wherever we look, infections level off before 10%-20% of the population is infected. This is somewhat mysterious. This is not really true. Bergamo had a 58% infection rate as of last month: https://bergamo.corriere.it/notizie/cronaca/20_maggio_22/ber... Several prisons have seen infection rates in the 70-80% range: https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/0... The USS Theodore Roosevelt had an…

Curiously enough, after running some simulations in a supposed realistically connected population model (but much smaller n), I found linear growth occurring soon after the exponential phase.

I suspect this might be a topological condition (i.e. the due to the distribution of connections) that limits the growth, in the same way a rope will burn linearly if you set fire to one end of it. Of course, a society is more connected than a rope (in the sense we usually have more contacts that just 'up the rope' and 'down the rope'), but continuing exponential growth requires 'fresh' connections at each generation (so no cycles in the graph) - maybe this limits the acceleration of the epidemic.

Re: Covid-19: The T Cell Story

#17
post #9

> And wherever we look, infections level off before 10%-20% of the population is infected. This is somewhat mysterious. This is not really true. Bergamo had a 58% infection rate as of last month: https://bergamo.corriere.it/notizie/cronaca/20_maggio_22/ber... Several prisons have seen infection rates in the 70-80% range: https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/0... The USS Theodore Roosevelt had an…

Every single worker has COVID at one farm https://www.bloomberg.com./news/articles/2020-05-29/every-si...

Re: Covid-19: The T Cell Story

#18
post #9

> And wherever we look, infections level off before 10%-20% of the population is infected. This is somewhat mysterious. This is not really true. Bergamo had a 58% infection rate as of last month: https://bergamo.corriere.it/notizie/cronaca/20_maggio_22/ber... Several prisons have seen infection rates in the 70-80% range: https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/0... The USS Theodore Roosevelt had an…

Every single worker has COVID at one farm https://www.bloomberg.com./news/articles/2020-05-29/every-si...

I think this tells you more about their working and sleeping conditions than it does about how the pandemic will play out on a national scale.

Re: Covid-19: The T Cell Story

#19

What's the qualifications of the author before I go and invest time to read his/her theories?

It's Musk Syndrome -- be successful at something, to whatever degree, so think that a bit of Googling makes you an expert at everything, and that the world needs to hear your take.

It's absolutely exhausting, and is easily the weakest element of sites like Hacker News. There is a certain sort of hubris in this industry that just foments this exaggerated sense of relevance to every topic.

Re: Covid-19: The T Cell Story

#20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every single worker has COVID at one farm https://www.bloomberg.com./news/articles/2020-05-29/every-si...

I think this tells you more about their working and sleeping conditions than it does about how the pandemic will play out on a national scale.

But the article claims it will discuss "How around 50% of us appear to have (some?) Cell Mediated Immunity against COVID-19". If we're seeing farms where every single person falls ill, that suggests that 50% of us aren't immune, though I suppose "(some?)" is a cop out.
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